Thermoelastic deformation and failure of rubberlike materials

In many practical applications rubber components are exposed to relatively high operating temperatures yet very few studies can be found in the literature that deal with the temperature influence on deformation and, especially, failure of rubberlike materials. In the present work, we partly fill this gap providing the experimental results on uniaxial tension and bulge tests for nitrile butadiene rubber, neoprene, and silicone for various temperatures in the range from 20°C to 90°C. Based on the results of the tests we develop novel thermoelastic constitutive models, which also incorporate a failure description via the method of energy limiters. Using the developed models, we study the cavitation problem under the elevated temperatures. We find that, generally, the heating might lower material strength while the material stiffness is not necessarily sensitive to the temperature alterations.